Council tables grant to start ObamaCare Exchange

(CONCORD) New Hampshire’s Executive Council voted unanimously tabled a request from the state Insurance Commissioner to accept $666,000 to study how to set up a health insurance exchange called for under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Councilor David Wheeler (R-Milford) argued that the study would take New Hampshire down the path of ObamaCare. Insurance Commissioner Roger Sevigny insisted the planning grant would not commit the state to any further action. But Councilor Chris Sununu (R-Newfields) worried that it would provide ammunition to those seeking to increase state control over health care, and might put state taxpayers on the hook for the cost on an exchange.

The proposed contract would go to Wakely Consulting Group, which crafted Health Connector for Massachusetts in response to that state’s 2006 health care law. Under the national health care law known as ObamaCare, states must set up their own health care exchanges by 2014 to help individuals meet the mandate to purchase health insurance, or be placed into a national exchange.